Not Even Wrong

_{Cornelius Hunter
July 2, 2009

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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The great physicist Wolfgang Pauli once criticized a scientific paper as so bad that it was “not even wrong.” It was so sloppy and ill conceived, thought Pauli, that to call it merely wrong would be to give it too much credit–it wasn’t even wrong. Today such a condemnation applies well to the theory of evolution which relies on religious convictions to prop up bad science. It seems that every argument for evolution wilts under scrutiny. Here is a classic example.

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Comments

Hoki:
Joseph, I already explained this to you. In real science, there is ALWAYS more than one hypothesis to explain a set of observations. You haven’t got a point (other than a sandboxy “well, an intelligent designer could also have made it that way”).
Your "hypothesis" has nothing to do with non-telic processes. IOW you don't have a point. 1) If the universe was the product of a common design then I would expect it to be governed by one (common) set of parameters.
How about that for a religious assumption?!
And yet I am not a religious person. But anyway what is the religious assumption? Please be specific.
Oh, and why do you think that ID has any problems with my dogs/cats-human/chimp scenario?
No mechanism that could allow for it. So to recap your alleged hypothesis has nothing to do with supporting your position and for unexplained reasons you think my design hypothesis has religious assumptions.Joseph_{July 9, 2009
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And Hoki, Why is it you want a design hypothesis from me when you refuse to provide a testable hypothesis for your non-telic position?Joseph_{July 9, 2009
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1- Why that assumption?
Why not? It can be tested.
2- Common design and convergence can explain similarities. IOW thanks for proving my point.
Joseph, I already explained this to you. In real science, there is ALWAYS more than one hypothesis to explain a set of observations. You haven't got a point (other than a sandboxy "well, an intelligent designer could also have made it that way").
I have complete with tests and potential falsifications:
I stopped reading after the first "prediction":
1) If the universe was the product of a common design then I would expect it to be governed by one (common) set of parameters.
How about that for a religious assumption?! Oh, and why do you think that ID has any problems with my dogs/cats-human/chimp scenario?Hoki_{July 9, 2009
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Hoki:
On the assumption that DNA changes slowly and given that morphological examinations have inferred that humans are closely related to chimps, a hypothesis is that the DNA in a human is more similar to that of a chimp than either of the aforementioned species DNA is to that of a fish.
1- Why that assumption? 2- Common design and convergence can explain similarities. IOW thanks for proving my point.
How about you Joseph. Can you state a testable ID hypothesis?
I have complete with tests and potential falsifications: The Design Hypotheis See also: Alternative hypotheses using the same data
Ever heard of descent with modification? As opposed to descent with ridiculously large changes?
Yes I have heard of the very vague "descent with modification" but there is never anything specific that we can actually test. IOW your scenario is perfectly acceptable to evolution.Joseph_{July 9, 2009
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dbthomas, My point is related to my previous post. Joseph posted in the interim, so it looks disjointed. The posts were supposed to appear back to back. AtomAtom_{July 8, 2009
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Perhaps to clarify, I should say that beyond stating that ID allows for a designer to intervene anywhere, anyhow and anytime, I can't say in any great detail why ID is OK with that scenario.Hoki_{July 8, 2009
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Atom, what's your point? It's not like anyone was suggesting people were normally haploid.dbthomas_{July 8, 2009
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Joseph, How about: On the assumption that DNA changes slowly and given that morphological examinations have inferred that humans are closely related to chimps, a hypothesis is that the DNA in a human is more similar to that of a chimp than either of the aforementioned species DNA is to that of a fish. Note: this hypothesis says nothing about the mechanisms involved in the speciation of these species. How about you Joseph. Can you state a testable ID hypothesis?
Umm evolution doesn’t know what makes an organism what it is so how could it have a problem with your scenario?
Ever heard of descent with modification? As opposed to descent with ridiculously large changes?
And what part of ID is OK with that scenario? Please be specific.
It is impossible for me to say since there is nothing in ID that has any problem with it. If you disagree, you should state why.
Excvept you don’t have a hypothesis and if there is more than one explanation then they all have to be taught in a science classroom.
Ah, rhetoric. I suppose this is where I should say something along the lines of "ID is not science since it must use religious assumptions to make any predictions".Hoki_{July 8, 2009
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From 1967: "...the human being receives 23 chromosomes from the father's sperm and 23 chromosomes from the mother's ovum." - Introduction to psychology By Ernest Ropiequet Hilgard, Richard C. Atkinson, 1967 SourceAtom_{July 8, 2009
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Here's a scenario- Both genomes- a chimp and a human- are mapped and compared- side by each. The differences amount to 20%. That difference also means that a certain number (more than one) of mutations would have had to become fixed in the population each generation- and that is only if the genetic changes determine the final form. Is common descent via an accumulation of genetic accidents still feasible in that scenario? IOW what would it take to falsify the premise in your opinions?Joseph_{July 8, 2009
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Hoki, I take it that you aren't going to provide a testable hypothesis. Oh well.
One day, all cats suddenly start giving birth to dogs. Humans bud off, fully developed, from the ears of chimps. Evolution would struggle with this one. ID wouldn’t.
Umm evolution doesn't know what makes an organism what it is so how could it have a problem with your scenario? And what part of ID is OK with that scenario? Please be specific.
In real science, there is ALWAYS more than one hypothesis. What is your point?
Excvept you don't have a hypothesis and if there is more than one explanation then they all have to be taught in a science classroom. That is if they have a scientific basis- for example a testable hypothesis. And that is where you have a problem.Joseph_{July 8, 2009
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Khan wrote:
YOur assertion about evolution accomodating anything doesn’t hold up. If humans had 23 pairs of chromosomes AND the missing one could not be accounted for, like by a fusion event, then this would be a serious problem for evolution. However, that is not the case.
Your lack of imagination cannot be used as evidence against NDT. According to the C-Value paradox, some simpler organisms have much more genetic material than higher organisms. That is exactly the opposite of what everyone expects. Is this a problem for NDT? No. We can always use our imaginations to come up with ad hoc reasons for the anomaly. If humans had 23 chromosome pairs without a known fusion event, would NDT suffer? No, for a few reasons. First, the paper describing the possible fusion event was published in 1991 ("Origin of human chromosome 2: An Ancestral telomere-telomere fusion"), yet chromosome structure has been known about since at least 1915. What happened during that time, was NDT abandoned or even questioned over that fact? Did any of us learn about this "serious problem for evolutionary theory" while in school? Secondly, as I mentioned above, we could assume a chromosome loss. Cell division events can result in differing chromosome numbers, sometimes more, sometimes less. Given that variability, it is obvious that darwinists would simply invoke a known mechanical mechanism to explain the effect. Again, your lack of imagination is not an argument. AtomAtom_{July 8, 2009
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Khan:
YOur assertion about evolution accomodating anything doesn’t hold up. If humans had 23 pairs of chromosomes AND the missing one could not be accounted for, like by a fusion event, then this would be a serious problem for evolution.
Just because Khan sez so?
OTOH, 24, 5, 6 pairs of chromosomes; none of these would be a problem for design.
Again just because Khan sez so.
after all, who knows how the unnamed designer thinks?
Strawman anyone? It doesn't matter what the designer thinks. What matters are possible design constraints. This is where common design comes in. No need to keep re-inventing things when you already have things that work fine. So how about the mighty Khan producing a testable hypothesis on the premise that chimps and humans share a common ancestor via random variation & natural selection. Do you have a calculation on how many mutations it took to go from a quadraped to an upright biped? Anything on what was so special about this fusion event that allowed it to become fixed in both sets chromosomes? Anything at all except for the complete refusal to accept design?Joseph_{July 8, 2009
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Joseph:
Perhaps but without a mechanism or mechanisms it cannot be tested.
Yes, it can.
You have ID confused with the theory of evolution which can explain any and everything.
Try this for an excercise: One day, all cats suddenly start giving birth to dogs. Humans bud off, fully developed, from the ears of chimps. Evolution would struggle with this one. ID wouldn't.
But anyway my point is that universal common descent does not offer any exclusive evidence. And everything it purports to explain can be explained some other way.
In real science, there is ALWAYS more than one hypothesis. What is your point?Hoki_{July 8, 2009
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Atom,
So the problem is that we have two contradictory propositions: 1) A - Humans have 24 pairs of chromosomes. 2) ~A - Humans do not have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Both A and ~A can be accommodated by NDT. A prediction is defined as much by what we exclude as by what we expect to see. The problem is that in this case, both A and ~A could be predicted from NDT for different reasons, thus the prediction is useless. As for design, you are correct: design does not exclude A or ~A, either. This is why I don’t say design predicts a fusion event (though it does accommodate it, much like NDT.)
YOur assertion about evolution accomodating anything doesn't hold up. If humans had 23 pairs of chromosomes AND the missing one could not be accounted for, like by a fusion event, then this would be a serious problem for evolution. However, that is not the case. OTOH, 24, 5, 6 pairs of chromosomes; none of these would be a problem for design.after all, who knows how the unnamed designer thinks?Khan_{July 8, 2009
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Hoki:
One can draw an inference about common ancestry without even considering any specific mechanisms.
Perhaps but without a mechanism or mechanisms it cannot be tested. I will wager that I can take any “evidence” for a common descent relationship between chimps and humans and use it in a hypothesis for common design and/ or convergence.
ID can incorporate any observation and “explain” it any way it wants.
You have ID confused with the theory of evolution which can explain any and everything. The design inference requires specific criteria. But anyway my point is that universal common descent does not offer any exclusive evidence. And everything it purports to explain can be explained some other way.Joseph_{July 7, 2009
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Joseph,
OK Hoki stick with science and produce a testable hypothesis for the premise that chimps and humans share a common ancester and diverged via an accumulation of genetic accidents.
One can draw an inference about common ancestry without even considering any specific mechanisms. Right?
I will wager that I can take any “evidence” for a common descent relationship between chimps and humans and use it in a hypothesis for common design and/ or convergence.
ID can incorporate any observation and "explain" it any way it wants. Your "bet" is safer than Kent Hovind's.Hoki_{July 7, 2009
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Do you have any idea of the bottle-neck you are relying on to get that fusion fixed on BOTH sets of chromosomes?Joseph_{July 7, 2009
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David Kellogg:
except that human share a whole lot of commonality with our great ape relatives.
And that could be due to common design and/ or convergence.
Well, evolution says that humans descended from the same family as the other great apes.
Except that evolution doesn't say that. Some people think there is evidence for such a relationship but evolution doesn't make such a prediction. Evolution didn't predict primates. And until someone comes up with the scientific data which demonstrates the transformations required are even possible the premise isn't scientific. That said the alleged split came about 7.5 million tears ago. And according to a recent peer-reviewed paper that tried to refute Dr Behe's "Edge of Evolution", as well as Haldane's dilemma, that just isn't enough time. So again if all you have are similarities you don't have anything for common descent. And for the record that nonsensical evidence did trick me once- that is until I actually started looking into what is required.Joseph_{July 7, 2009
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David Kellogg, I'm not sure why you adress some of your answers to me.Hoki_{July 7, 2009
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DK, For your first point (loss of functionality), it isn't the case that lower chromosome number always equals "less functionality" or that equal chromosome count necessarily means "equal functionality". For example, we are much more "complex" or "functional" than a frog (I don't know how you're really defining functionality, so I'm assuming you mean "can do more stuff" in simple language) yet there are also frogs with 24 chromosome pairs (link) Furthermore, we could discuss the many "simple" organisms that have much higher chromosome counts than us (if memory serves me correctly). So your point of a direct relation between chromosome count and functionality isn't general enough to be a law. I have little doubt that NDT could simply assume that the extra pair contained mostly stretches of junk-DNA or that the genes weren't particularly important in development. Or perhaps they were redundant, etc etc. Now, I'll show some humility here since I am not a biochemist or biologist and admit that I don't know all of the implications of a chromosome pair loss. (I don't think anyone really knows what it would fully entail, since we know so little about the genetic program at this point.) So if you want to argue that there is a strong empirical case that humans could only have less chromosomes if they are fused rather than lost, I'm open to hearing it. However, the C-Value paradox would caution us against using such assumptions as the basis for an argument. AtomAtom_{July 6, 2009
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PS And again, I want to emphasize that if humans were originally designed or developed with 24 chromosomes instead of 23, that similarity would say nothing about common descent, since shared chromosome number does not always speak of recent common ancestry. It could be the result of common descent, but it could also be due to common design pattern or convergence. If it always pointed to recent common ancestry, then we'd have to conclude that some barley is closely related to apes as well (link). Obviously, it isn't always the case.Atom_{July 6, 2009
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Atom, In layman's terms, what do you mean here by "loss of chromosomes"?
We could simply assume a loss of chromosomes if we didn’t see any evidence for a fusion event.
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Atom, I get what you say, except that human share a whole lot of commonality with our great ape relatives. A loss of chromosomes would not be expected given that similarity: a whole lot of function would be lost as well. It's not just that we descended from likely 24-pair species, but we descended from them and retained all that similarity. A great deal of function would be lost by "losing" a chromosome pair. Fusion is the more likely expectation.David Kellogg_{July 6, 2009
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David Kellogg wrote:
Well, evolution says that humans descended from the same family as the other great apes. All the other great apes have 24 chromosome pairs. The 23 chromosome pair is unique to humans. If there’s a common ancestor for all the great apes, it probably had 24 pairs rather than 23 (unless the extra chromosome arrived several times).
and
Design certainly doesn’t predict anything like this, whereas evolution does.
Your answer makes sense, except for the fact that if humans were found to have 23 chromosomes with no fusion event, Neo-Darwinian Theory could also accommodate that fact. Let's imagine that we don't know how many chromosome pairs humans have; we're scientists trying to guess. We could guess that they'd have 24 pairs like great apes, since we share many similarities with them (and some would say are closely related); or they could have less, due to chromosome pairs being lost over time; or they could have more, due to a polyploidy type of event (or other mutation.) If we look and they have 23 pairs, this is no problem for NDT. We could simply assume a loss of chromosomes if we didn't see any evidence for a fusion event. So the problem is that we have two contradictory propositions: 1) A - Humans have 24 pairs of chromosomes. 2) ~A - Humans do not have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Both A and ~A can be accommodated by NDT. A prediction is defined as much by what we exclude as by what we expect to see. The problem is that in this case, both A and ~A could be predicted from NDT for different reasons, thus the prediction is useless. As for design, you are correct: design does not exclude A or ~A, either. This is why I don't say design predicts a fusion event (though it does accommodate it, much like NDT.) AtomAtom_{July 6, 2009
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I wrote:
Evolution predicts that a 23-pair species (humans) descends from a 24-pair species.
Joseph responded:
No, evolution does not make such a prediction.
Well, evolution says that humans descended from the same family as the other great apes. All the other great apes have 24 chromosome pairs. The 23 chromosome pair is unique to humans. If there's a common ancestor for all the great apes, it probably had 24 pairs rather than 23 (unless the extra chromosome arrived several times).David Kellogg_{July 6, 2009
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Atom,
I’ve never talked with you on UD before, David, but why would you make theological arguments to bolster the case for common descent?
I only refer to what you call "theological" explanations because others think it is explained by design. Design certainly doesn't predict anything like this, whereas evolution does.David Kellogg_{July 6, 2009
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David Kellogg "That’s what I get too. This also makes the preview comments on the side unreadable." For now I just highlight the text. Left click drag.IRQ Conflict_{July 6, 2009
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David Kellogg:
Evolution predicts that a 23-pair species (humans) descends from a 24-pair species.
No, evolution does not make such a prediction. And evolution via an accumulation of genetic accidents certainly doesn't make such a prediction. Where do you get your information? Can you share it? Chromosomal fusion could very well be one way to reproducitively isolate two otherwise very similarly designed populations
I suppose if the species weren’t reproductively isolated anyway, as the other great apes are from each other.
And what makes them reproductively isolated?
Also, you could take the same information and cram it into 23 pairs if you were designing them separately and wanted to create a 23-pair organism using the same basic information.
How do you know? Do you know what it takes to design a living organism and keep it reproductively isolated?
But then there’d be no reason to have telemere DNA in the middle and two centromeres. Lousy design, but a prediction of common descent.
Except that you don't appear to have any knowledge of design and even less of evolution. Again I will ask: Do you have any idea of the bottle-neck you are relying on to get that fusion fixed on BOTH sets of chromosomes?Joseph_{July 6, 2009
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David Kellogg wrote:
If this is explained by design, it seems that the designer manipulated great ape DNA to create humans with 23 chromosomes and left evidence that would be the kind predicted by common descent. Sounds like a lousy designer who keeps planting false leads.
Sounds more like "lousy" false dilemmas. I've never talked with you on UD before, David, but why would you make theological arguments to bolster the case for common descent? "A designer (made in my image) wouldn't do these things, therefore common descent." - Darwin made that form of argumentation famous, but that doesn't make it good. You give us the choice "common descent or false leads", when the most likely answer is "neither." From the evidence at hand, we can infer that humans (or their ancestors) likely once had 24 chromosome pairs. The evidence says nothing about whether or not they were fully human at that point, so your dilemma is irrelevant. For my part, I try to stay aware from theological arguments on UD, as I'd rather explore the science. AtomAtom_{July 6, 2009
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